The Global Network on Financial Geography (FinGeo)
Virtual Seminar Series in 2022. More information will be available soon for the
September-December sessions. The seminars will take place online, and we look
forward to stimulating discussion with presenters and attendees from different
parts of the world.
We have a great line-up of speakers across career stages
and covering different topics on money and finance in the coming months.
Gulf states face an existential threat from efforts
to decarbonise the global economy and minimise the effects of the climate
crisis. For their ruling elites, there is a pressing need to diversify out of
oil and their domestic economy in order to protect their accrued wealth and
maintain their regime. In some UK cities, this impetus has been experienced as
an inflow of overseas state capital into property assets, profoundly reshaping
the local urban development process. Yet this process has not been entirely
smooth – in many cases the global image of these cities rests on their perceived
reputation as an open, progressive and tolerant place which can incur
reputational costs when they are too closely associated with regimes whose human
rights record is poor. How do authoritarian regimes organise their investments
in cities that market themselves as liberal bastions? The paper explores this
dilemma through a case study of Manchester Life - a £350m public-private Build
to Rent residential property joint venture between Manchester City Council (UK)
and the Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG), a private equity group with close ties to
the ruling family of Abu Dhabi. Using corporate network mapping and accounting
analysis, we trace the spatial network of legal entities involved in the deal,
as well as the financial flows across jurisdictions. Our study reveals how,
initially, ADUG’s financial investments into sporting and cultural assets
reduced reputational concerns locally and helped build a ‘soft power enclave’.
This provided the platform for an extensive programme of residential real estate
development, managed aggressively for margin. We chart the flows of finance into
Manchester via entities located in the secrecy jurisdiction of Jersey, the
organisation of entities within Manchester which limited or ‘dammed’ financial
outflows to the council partner and the national exchequer, and the rental flows
back to Abu Dhabi through Jersey. We argue that tax havens, in this context,
operate as sharp power conduits within a financial network – facilitating Gulf
elite interests whilst preventing local public scrutiny and accountability
around the extent of the profits extracted. The paper critically contributes to
both the financial geography of real estate investment, the financialisation of
Built-to-Rent assets and recent state capitalist research. We show that the
state, far from being monolithic, is hybridising - becoming something more
protean and mobile to facilitate its financial reach into global real estate
markets. We focus in particular on the incorporation of private sector actors
within the decision-making apparatus of the state and its adjacent entities who
strategically manage the expansion of Gulf state real estate investment.